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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25271083">Wide Awake (And I'm The Same)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeyaloki/pseuds/seeyaloki'>seeyaloki</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Band of Brothers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Canon Compliant, Hurt/Comfort, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 08:02:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,758</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25271083</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeyaloki/pseuds/seeyaloki</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He twirls the glass in his hand and Dick wonders if he’s thinking about breaking it. Like watching the crystal hit the wooden floorboards and shatter into pieces might make his heart skip a beat and make him feel alive in ways that jumping out of airplanes probably doesn’t anymore now.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that why you joined the paratroopers, Nix? Because you thought you wouldn’t come back?”</p><p> </p><p>“No. I joined the paratroopers because I knew it was where you would be.”</p><p> </p><p>(Or, conversations that define them.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Lewis Nixon/Richard Winters</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>99</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Wide Awake (And I'm The Same)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I rewatched the series, listened to a lot of Beethoven, and then this happened.</p><p>Title is from Sam Fender's You're Not The Only One, which is amazing and you should definitely give it a listen.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>1.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>When Dick steps outside the tent, the evening sky is that greyish blue it always seems to be in England and it doesn't look at all like a few rain clouds are the only thing between them and fighting a war. Nix is there leaning back against a couple of supply crates, smiling softly around a cigarette and glancing upwards like tonight, they're nothing but two men making polite small talk about the weather instead of men who volunteered for jumping to what could very well be their deaths, albeit a day later than they expected. If Dick hadn't actually heard the news for himself, he wouldn't have believed it. That something as huge and meticulously planned as an entire <em> invasion </em> can just be postponed easily as if it is a dinner date on a friday night. He's distracted because of it, has only one ear on the conversation as none of it really seems that important now, happy hour and civilized places. Until Nix says, too serious and too quietly:</p><p> </p><p>"We'll go to Chicago, I'll take you there."</p><p> </p><p>Dick wonders sometimes if Nix talks about these things, makes these plans for a future that isn't certain at all, because he's actually afraid that he might not have one at all. Dick thinks it's easier to not think about what he left behind when he boarded that troop ship, and even easier still to not think about what he'll have left if he does end up going back home. But Nix is exactly the same as he was when Dick first met him, laid back and still wrapped up in that rich boy manner that screams <em>I have everything</em> even though none of them have much of anything right now. Dick has only ever known him like he's isn't worried about a damn thing in the world, like jumping into occupied territory is just something he does sometimes.</p><p> </p><p>Dick doesn't know if he should be jealous of it, the relaxed set to his shoulders with which Nix does everything. Dick wonders sometimes if the army found him just indifferent enough to trust with their secrets, like they picked him out of the line up and decided <em>well who's he gonna tell </em>and Nix just happened to be damn good with a map and clever in ways not many of them are.</p><p> </p><p>Dick had said it to him once, after Nix navigated them through a training exercise none of them could actually wrap their heads around, like it was nothing, like it was easy; that maybe he was just born for this particular job. But Nix had just scoffed and laughed self-deprecatingly and it sounded like maybe he was told all his life that the only thing he was born for, was being exactly what his father wanted him to be and nothing else at all. But instead he'd just shaken his head and said <em>no, I've just gotten real damn good at pretending that I was </em>and dismissed every other compliment Dick gave him on his work after that. </p><p> </p><p>"Yeah, we'll see." Dick answers. But he really only wants to say: don't make promises you can't keep, and he hates that now he's thinking about it, Nix in a clean cut suit with a cocktail in one hand and a cigarette in the other and looking every bit like he belongs in all the places that Dick doesn't. </p><p> </p><p>He's struck with a sudden need to hear what Nix is really thinking about, beyond the indifference and the million different masks he seems to have categorized neatly, one for every occasion and Dick asks him:</p><p> </p><p>"Do you think we'll ever go home again?" </p><p> </p><p>And Nix only sighs and Dick thinks about making the same joke he had on the train months ago (<em> I'm not the intelligence officer) </em>but he thinks better of it when he sees Nix look up at the clouds again. It's not clearing up and they both know it but Nix has his eyes set on the sky like maybe he could change the weather if he just stares at it intensely enough. He's not smiling anymore. </p><p> </p><p>"I don't know, Dick. I really don't fucking know."</p><p> </p><p>And that's the last time either of them talks about Chicago. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>2.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Hours after their retreat, they're hidden away somewhere in a corner, backs turned to Eindhoven's bright orange and red streaked sky and Dick's eyes are instead glued to the small burnmark above Nix's brow. Won't even scar, Doc had said. Won't leave a single trace of evidence. But Dick thinks he will always remember the exact spot, thinks he could still be able to trace the length of it with his fingers, even in pitch black darkness. Even when there isn't anything to see at all anymore. </p><p> </p><p>"Quit looking at me like that." Nix says again. </p><p> </p><p>And he tries but as soon as he managed to draw his eyes away from the bombings in the distance, his stare has kept going back to Nix's forehead every other second. It's an unfamiliar feeling, to have an urge that's stronger than himself and he wonders if this is what it must be like, every time Nix starts to reach for the bottle again.</p><p> </p><p>(no vices, he'd said and Dick had wanted to grab him by the shoulders and yell and plead at him<em> do you really not know?</em>) </p><p> </p><p>"I can't." Dick says to him. </p><p> </p><p>Nix just meets his eyes and keeps them locked for a long time and then he breathes out a deep sigh that could almost be translated as permission. Then he turns away again, and it's like he understands something now that Dick didn't really know how to explain, like they have reached some form of common ground. Like a score has been settled between them. </p><p> </p><p>And Nix lets him look all he wants. </p><p> </p><p>
  <b>3.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>A foxhole in the winter, snow cold upon his shoulder where it falls slowly through the trees. A body next to his, impossibly warm for all it shouldn't be. There's a hand on his thigh and lips against his neck, close but never closer than that and if Bastogne has made them excel at one thing, it must be pretending that their proximity never means anything more than a way to stay warm. </p><p> </p><p>It doesn't seem like a night for talking, the men are quiet, most of them unable to stop from shivering enough to get a full sentence out. But Dick has a question that's been ringing in his head ever since they sent Peacock back across the Atlantic. </p><p> </p><p>"Nix?" </p><p> </p><p>He hums in answer. Dick can feel the sound vibrate against his throat and it makes him swallow. His throat aches. Every part of him seems to ache these days. </p><p> </p><p>"Why did you give it away? Your furlough," He can feel Nix lift his head to look at him. He doesn't look back. "You've earned a break as much as the next man."</p><p> </p><p>How easily he gave it up, his chance to leave, even if for a while, whilst the rest of them were almost literally dying to go back home. Nix pushed that paper into someone else's hand as if it offended him. </p><p> </p><p>"Hell, I don't know, Dick. Maybe I just don't want to go home." He sighs and his breath turns into a little cloud as it hits the cold air, and Dick thinks for some reason of Chicago and what they would look like leaning against the wall of a stifling hot bar, Nix's lips around a cigarette and smoke curling in the space between them.</p><p> </p><p>"So what does that make me, huh? Crazy, I'll bet." </p><p> </p><p>Dick does look at him then, at his eyes shimmering in the twilight and his reflection in them looks like a ghost. Dick has never really admitted it but he has felt it too, that asphyxiating fear that he might actually make it home safe and, even in the mirror in his Lancaster bedroom, forever look like a ghost. </p><p> </p><p>"No. I don't think it does."</p><p> </p><p>Nix huffs out a sarcastic laugh. His breath is warm. Dick wonders if his throat hurts too. </p><p> </p><p>"Don't say that like you actually mean it, Dick. They all want to go home. <em> You </em> want to go. Back to your quiet, picturesque, farmboy life." </p><p> </p><p>It stings a little every time, that Nix speaks of him like Dick is this perfect blank page, free of scribbles or doodles (<em>and no vices</em>) while Nix himself is a whole diary worth of hastily written words and badly erased pencil sentences of which the imprints haven't really gone away. It stings that Nix, who speaks of happy hour and trips through Europe like they can just get on a train and pretend the world hasn't changed a bit, is somehow painfully realistic about this particular thing, that even if they do both make it back home, they will never again be anything alike. </p><p> </p><p>"You don't have to want what I want, Nix. It doesn't change what I feel."</p><p> </p><p>Dick doesn't even realize the implied meaning of that until he's actually said it. But Nix is exceptionally talented at reading between all sorts of lines and he's looking at him like he does know, like he knows <em> exactly </em> what Dick means. </p><p> </p><p>You don't have to want what I want. I still want you. </p><p> </p><p>The silence after that is filled with melancholy and Dick looks at Nix's face again and tries not to think of tragedy and broken hearts but can't help but think that that very look is exactly what all those people sing about in their sad songs. Dick is so caught up in the thought that he doesn't notice Nix move his hand until he reaches up and brushes Dick's jaw with the back of his fingers and keeps looking at him like Dick's one of those damned maps he always seems to carry with him, trying to find a way that's least bound to get them killed, like he's trying to navigate through territory he doesn't know, trying to figure out if he dares to set foot there at all. He's looking at Dick like he's thinking about it, wanting. </p><p> </p><p>But after a long minute, Nix pulls away and moves a few inches back so that their bodies are no longer touching at all and he glances around himself as if he's only just realized that even in a foxhole, they're not really alone. </p><p> </p><p>“It’s not fair.” He says. And Dick thinks that Nix too has stopped pretending that they don't know what's <em> really </em>being said. That they're speaking of something far more secret and far more crazy than not wanting to go home. It is its own form of torture, he wants to say, wanting something that you can't have. </p><p> </p><p>But Dick just answers, “No. None of it is." and finds he doesn't feel like talking at all anymore. </p><p> </p><p>Bastogne is on fire in the distance and they are both giving in to exhaustion and isn't <em> that </em>unfair as well, Dick thinks, that they can still sleep while the world is burning. But their eyes fall closed anyway. They have long become familiar with fire and smoke and aching throats and broken hearts. </p><p> </p><p>(The next morning, he wakes up and Nix's ankle is crossed over his. A sliver of sunlight breaks through the treeline and makes him squint up to where the wind knocked the tarp covering their foxhole back a couple of inches during the night. Nix stirs beside him and squints up as well, cheeks and nose red with the cold and he whispers a goodmorning like it's all he can force his vocal chords to do. </p><p> </p><p>Dick just looks at him and resists the urge to press their shoulders together and pretend, even for a while, that they are anywhere else in the world.)</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>4.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>Sometimes it's almost as if there is a whole other war between them. Nothing for ammunition except what they think and feel and say but there is a line there, running clean between them and Dick can’t see either the start or the end of it. But they still stay close, the tips of their boots almost touching. On good days, they will just cross that line, easy as breathing, and move into each other's space, just two people meeting in the middle and shaking hands and deciding they are on common ground after all. On bad days, there are sharp glares and even sharper words that cut like shrapnel and they move back and back away from that line that breaks the space between them, until there is a distance there so great that they are almost unrecognizable to each other.</p><p> </p><p>It’s on one of those bad days, that he hears a window break in the street and when Nix storms into his room not even five minutes later, he knows with an unwelcome certainty that the two have to be related. </p><p> </p><p>“What is it?” Dick asks after a full minute of just watching Nix pace across the room. </p><p> </p><p>“I’m out of whiskey, okay?” he snaps back, like Dick was accusing him of something, up in his face, fishing for a confession.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry about that.” He says, trying to keep the peace between them now that there might still be a chance of it.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah,” Nix scoffs sneeringly. “I just bet that you are.”</p><p> </p><p>Dick gets up at that and crosses his arms against his chest. He’s taller than Nix, seems it even more so because Nix is always slouching a little when he’s not standing at attention and Dick wonders if it’s intimidating, being towered over like that. But Nix’s mouth only pulls down in a snarl and he's not ever impressed by much, far too good at making words hurt to be unnerved by stature and size. </p><p> </p><p>“Why are you so angry with me, Nix?”</p><p> </p><p>And that does take him by surprise, being called out on it so blatantly, that he’s picking a fight for no reason. Nix crosses his arms too, petulantly annoyed at being seen through so easily. Dick is reminded of the stories Nix used to tell him, about himself at eighteen, rebellious and mouthy, pissing off his father on purpose because anger was better than not being felt for at all. </p><p> </p><p>“I’m not- not at you specifically. I’m just angry.”</p><p> </p><p>Dick nods at him and Nix lets his arms drop again and goes back to pacing. Dick follows the path of his boots, moving from one end of the room to the other and can’t really figure out what Nix came looking for here, certainly not his whiskey because the few full bottles that were in Dick’s footlocker disappeared a long time ago and the only glass in the room is filled with water. </p><p> </p><p>“I hate it here.” Nix says suddenly, and he stops pacing all at once, going instead to the window that looks down on the street and Dick almost asks him if he can see what he broke from there.</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t think all that many of us really like Germany, either, Nix.”</p><p> </p><p>“Not Germany. Just- the war. All of it. I hate it here.”</p><p> </p><p>Dick is confused by it, can still see Nix’s face in his memory, holding that folded paper in his hand, <em> this thing’s wasted on me</em>. The only man in the Bois Jacques who didn’t especially feel like leaving.</p><p> </p><p>“You said you didn’t want to go home.”</p><p> </p><p>“Well, I don’t, Dick.” He looks back at Dick for a second. “That doesn’t mean I love being at fucking war, does it?”</p><p> </p><p>Nix looks a little wild, in the shallow light of the lantern on Dick’s desk. A little wild and not at all like himself, hair tousled and eyes wide and when he turns back to the window, Dick can see his reflection in the glass.</p><p> </p><p>“No, it doesn’t. Look, Nix, if this is about the jump-”</p><p> </p><p>“I’m not talking about the fucking jump, Dick! We’re fighting a war, soldiers die, I think I’ve gotten pretty much used to that by now.”</p><p> </p><p>He’s yelling now, angry for real and Dick’s hackles are raised too, thinking of the men staying in the other rooms in the house he's billeting in. Of how little he would want one of them to come see for themselves what all the noise is about.</p><p> </p><p>“Then what <em> is </em> it?” He snarls back. Nix seems as surprised by Dick’s anger as Dick himself had been at Nix’s hostility towards him. His shoulders slump again and he moves away from the window to sit down on the edge of the desk against the wall. </p><p> </p><p>“I don’t know.” He sighs, and lets his face drop into his hands.</p><p> </p><p>“Nix.” he starts, but he doesn’t really know what to say anymore after that. He just walks up to the desk and pulls Nix’s hands away from his face. He looks so terribly tired, but when Dick reaches upwards to stroke a finger across Nix’s cheek, he flinches like he was burned and moves away from Dick so quickly that the papers on his desk are brushed off of it and start a slow descent towards the floor, sweeping back and forth through the air like feathers. </p><p> </p><p>“Dammit, Nix! What the hell do you want from me? Why are you here?”</p><p> </p><p>His anger comes back fast, all he can think is that it’s not fair, that Nix got to touch him like this, in the cold and in the dark. Dick can still recall the feeling of fingers on his jaw, but Nix just runs away. For all the bravery it takes to jump out of planes right into battle, he’s not all that brave about letting people feel things for him that he can’t explain through coordinates and lines on a map. It’s funny, looking back on it now, that there isn’t really anything hard about jumping out of an airplane, nothing compared to how difficult it is, loving someone you are not ever really supposed to. </p><p> </p><p>Dick thinks he might as well leap now too. He remembers his training, way back when his world was still so much simpler, jump now or you never will. Breathe in deeply. Green means go. Either you make it or you don’t.</p><p> </p><p>“I’m in love with you, Lew." He says. Because he’s tired of it, keeping these secrets from each other that they both already know.</p><p> </p><p>Nix closes his eyes and the anger on his face fades into something far more mournful. Dick can only think to himself that it is never supposed to be like this, not in the pictures and not in the songs, to tell someone you love them and have it feel like losing. </p><p> </p><p>"You think I don't know that?" Nix says, once his eyes are open again and he meets Dick’s own dead on.</p><p> </p><p>"You think- you look at me, Dick, all the fucking time, like you want to tell me all these things that heaven knows you shouldn't, like- like you feel <em> everything</em>, and you think I don't know that?" </p><p> </p><p>"Lew-" </p><p> </p><p>"I know you’re in love with me, Dick," Nix says, and he comes forward and grabs Dick's shoulders so hard as if he might slip away, like it’s life or death now, that he hears what Nix has to say about this. And when he's so close that his nose bumps against Dick’s and they share the same breath, only then he whispers:</p><p> </p><p>"I know that you are, and it scares me that it doesn't scare the living daylights out of <em> you</em>."</p><p> </p><p>And then Nix releases a shaky breath that holds more weight than either of them would know how to put into words and he just turns around and walks out of the room, and the only evidence that he was ever even there are the damn papers on the floor. </p><p> </p><p>*</p><p>Much later that night, Dick stirs and it's a testament to how light of a sleeper the army has made him, that it takes nothing but the soft crackling of a fire in the corner of the room to wake him up. Dick turns towards it, realizing that it’s not even close to the morning yet, and finds Nix standing by the fireplace, empty glass in his hand. Dick calls out his name and Nix turns his head towards the bed but doesn’t meet his eyes. In the wicked orange-red light he looks haunted. Haunted by blown up airplanes and men that he didn't even know but had to watch die anyway and letters that he should never have had to write. He looks haunted by all sorts of things that will never haunt Dick, not even if he chased them down in the dead of night shouting <em> come and get me instead. </em></p><p> </p><p>“I finished writing all those letters. A couple hours ago actually. Couldn’t sleep.” Nix says and turns his head to the fire again. The house isn’t cold but he shivers anyway and holds his hands out towards it like they all had in Bastogne, already seeming years ago now, before they learned the hard way that being warm for even a minute wasn’t worth bleeding out in the snow for. </p><p> </p><p>“I’m sorry.” Dick says again, wonders if it’ll make him angry this time too.</p><p> </p><p>“You know, when I followed you to the paratroopers, I thought I knew for a fact that one day my own parents would receive one of those letters.” </p><p> </p><p>Dick realizes then that despite the glass in his hand, Nix isn’t even close to drunk. He can’t figure out what that means. If it’s simply because of the lack of his chosen brand to rock him to sleep or because he just didn’t want to be. Like writing letters that will break hearts irreparably and then not being able to sleep after is something he needs himself to remember. </p><p> </p><p>“I think we all did.” </p><p> </p><p>Nix laughs. “And yet we went, because we wanted to be the best. All the people that we left be damned.”</p><p> </p><p>“Was it really that simple?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah, I think it was. For God and country,” He scoffs and leans an elbow against the mantle of the fireplace. “Funny how you can volunteer to fight a war and still be selfish about it.”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t see how it’s selfish at all.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, you wouldn,’t,” Nix laughs again but there is a sadness in it this time that Dick wishes he could erase as simply as he could pencil lines on paper. He thinks back to the burnmark on Nix’s forehead, long gone now, the only one of Nix’s scars that has actually faded over time.</p><p> </p><p>“You think there aren't men here, Dick, and be honest to yourself about it, who ran away from home this far? All the way to the army and all the way across an ocean to war because it might be the only Goddamn valid excuse to never come back.”</p><p> </p><p>He twirls the glass in his hand and Dick wonders if he’s thinking about breaking it. Like watching the crystal hit the wooden floorboards and shatter into pieces might make his heart skip a beat and make him feel alive in ways that jumping out of airplanes probably doesn’t anymore now.</p><p> </p><p>“Is that why you joined the paratroopers, Nix? Because you thought you wouldn’t come back?”</p><p> </p><p>“No. I joined the paratroopers because I knew it was where you would be.”</p><p> </p><p>And it figures, Dick thinks, that Nix would choose that moment to finally turn around and actually look him in the eyes. Now that Dick has no single clue what to say anymore.</p><p> </p><p>“See?” He smirks. “Selfish. Hell, sometimes I start thinking about it and I wonder if my father might actually be disappointed if I make it back in one piece. Like I couldn’t at least die for my country or something.”</p><p> </p><p>“Nix, that’s not-”</p><p> </p><p>“No, I know it’s not. I’m always drunk off my ass when I think like that, Dick. I know he loves me, in that real twisted way that you can’t <em>help</em> loving someone.” And the question almost slips out then, now that they’re wrapped in soft orange hues and sorrow; <em> is that how you love me?  </em></p><p> </p><p>“Fuck. What the hell am I gonna do when I get back home, Dick?”</p><p> </p><p>And Dick says, “Pick up where you left off, like the rest of us. Like me.” but Nix only smiles at him softly and a little like tragedy and it’s an unwelcome thing to realize, Dick thinks, that there are things about Lewis Nixon that he will never understand, and that no one will ever explain to him.</p><p> </p><p>“You and I, Dick? Other than knowing what it’s like to jump out of an airplane whilst being shot at, you and I have nothing in common.”</p><p> </p><p>But Dick thinks that yes, they do and remembers warm gazes brushing over his body when Nix thought he wasn’t looking back, and cold fingers against his jaw and thinking <em> don’t you leave me like that </em> on a dirt road somewhere in Holland and guessing, no, being <em> sure </em> that it isn’t just him, can’t just be him who feels this unfamiliar kind of yearning so intensely that it scares him and keeps him up at night rather than the sound of mortars and young men dying. </p><p> </p><p>“You're wrong about me, Lew. About what you said earlier," He starts.</p><p> </p><p>"I <em> am </em>scared, too. I'm fucking terrified."</p><p> </p><p>And maybe it's the swearing, maybe it's the fact that Dick is still sitting in his damn bed, maybe Nix just decided that he should stop trying to avoid what's right in front of him. But he nods at Dick, something like defeat making his shoulders slump again and this time he doesn’t leave. The distance between them doesn't seem that impossible to cross anymore and Nix comes closer and closer, until he's leaning over Dick, one knee on the bed and presses their foreheads together. It takes him a couple of seconds and Dick waits for him to breathe in deeply and rub his nose against Dick's and then their mouths brush together. Tentatively at first but Dick reaches up and wraps his hand around the back of Nix's neck and touches his tongue against his bottom lip and then it's like a wave crashing onto the shore. </p><p> </p><p>"You can't stay," Dick says reluctantly when they pull away again. "I wish you could but- too many officers in one house." </p><p> </p><p>Nix nods again. "Yeah. Yeah, I'll put out the fire. You go back to sleep, okay? I'll go."</p><p> </p><p>Dick tries to stay awake, scared that if he looks away too soon, Nix might run much further than back to his own room and never come back again. But he's tired too and the day has been damn long so he falls asleep before he even knows it. </p><p> </p><p>It's not until he wakes up again in the morning to the sound of footsteps retreating from the room, that he realizes Nix had never left at all.</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>5.</b>
</p><p> </p><p>They find the camp and Dick knows it the second they open the gates, that not a single man in the entire company will ever stop seeing it in their nightmares. </p><p> </p><p>Nix comes to him later that night, long after it's gone dark, though Dick doesn't think any of the men are actually sleeping. It doesn't seem right, to sleep now, in warm beds while that camp is still there and those people are still forced to stay. Nix reaches for a bottle that's not even close to what he normally has. But Dick looks at him and doesn't think he's drinking because it's habitual now. No, Nix is sipping from that bottle because he's drinking to forget. </p><p> </p><p>"Are you okay?" Dick asks him. </p><p> </p><p>Nix looks from his hand to Dick and shrugs his shoulders. </p><p> </p><p>"Does it matter?" </p><p> </p><p>Dick nods. "It does to me."</p><p> </p><p>Nix sits down on the bed. He's still looking everywhere, eyes unfocused. He's probably still seeing the bodies in his head, and hearing the cries of that man, in a language they do not speak but did not need to, to understand the anguish. </p><p> </p><p>“You think you’ve seen all the worst things people can do to each other," Nix says after a long moment of silence. "You think that somehow there’s a limit to the horror that you’ve already reached, that it can’t surprise you anymore. But then we find this- this camp. How can we ever explain that? There's no glorious battle, no heroics, nothing at all. When you get home, how do you tell <em> those </em> stories, Dick?”</p><p> </p><p>Dick puts his pen down and stands up. When he reaches the bed, he runs his fingers through Nix's hair and takes the bottle out of his hand. </p><p> </p><p>“They’ll hear. It doesn’t have to be you who tells it, Nix. You don’t owe anyone any stories.”</p><p> </p><p>Nix's gaze follows him around the room as he puts the bottle back between the others. He doesn't protest its absence. They will not forget anyway, not even with all the alcohol in the world. </p><p> </p><p>“You think the war will excuse you from explanations? We were gone, packed our bags and left and all but said you might not ever see me again but then that won’t be my problem, will it? Hell, Dick, <em>a</em><em>ll </em> we owe them are the stories.”</p><p> </p><p>Dick sits down next to him and he's so tired of being sad and angry at all these things they've seen and had to do that they have to carry home with them now, like reluctant souvenirs. Or maybe like pages of a book that are wrinkled and worn down and damaged with time, barely hanging on by a thread but no matter how badly you want to, you can't just rip them out, because it will never again be complete without them. </p><p> </p><p>"Not me, Nix. You don't have to explain anything to me."</p><p> </p><p>And Nix turns to him at that, looking at Dick like he's made his mind up about something. And then Nix kisses him, desperately like he's got to have his hands on something, a bottle of whiskey or Dick's body. </p><p> </p><p>Nix pushes him back against the mattress and slides a leg between Dick's and their bodies fit together so lovely. </p><p> </p><p>"Nix." He says, and in the same second he already forgets what else he was going to say because Nix shuts him up before he can get the words out at all. He unbuttons Dick's shirt and then his own and when they're both off, he places his hands on either side of Dick's head on the bed and he says:</p><p> </p><p>"Stop talking. I don't want to talk anymore."</p><p> </p><p>And Dick leans up on his elbows and looks from Nix's eyes to his mouth and back to his eyes and he sees things there that he's never been able to spot so clearly, so he kisses him instead and his eyes close and the tension in Nix's features turns into something else entirely. </p><p> </p><p>What he does want to remember is this: pale flesh and thighs wrapped tightly around Dick's hips and two rough hands clinging to his back and shoulder blades and then chasing the drop of sweat that runs down his chest. There is Nix underneath him, his head thrown back against the pillow and sighing high pitched and their lips close but not pressed together, sharing the space between them like they can't breathe if they're not breathing each other in. He wants to remember everything. From the tight heat around him to the way Nix moans his name in the dark like it's the only word he still knows, to reaching the highest point of ecstasy, his hand grabbing onto Nix's tigh like he's afraid that if he lets go he might wake up and realize he's been dreaming the whole time after all. And afterwards, Nix doesn't grab for the bottle again and doesn't light a cigarette, he just laughs, softly at first and then louder when he sees the confused look on Dick's face and he rolls over onto his side, both their heads on the same pillow and he says, still grinning:</p><p> </p><p>"Fuck, Dick. I think I'm in love with you too." </p><p> </p><p>And Dick, hesitant that this confession might just slip from his mouth because Nix is satisfied and affectionate in the aftermath, catches himself waiting for the other shoe to drop. </p><p> </p><p>He asks: "Are you going to end up regretting that?" </p><p> </p><p>Nix sighs but it doesn't sound so sorrowful as it did all the other times Dick asked him questions he didn't want to be asked and reaches down to pull the blanket over them and shoves a hand under the pillow and lets his eyes fall shut. </p><p> </p><p>"Ask me in the morning." He answers. </p><p> </p><p>But when the dawn arrives, Nix wakes him up with lips on his shoulder and neck and a hand resting right over his heart and when he sees Dick is awake, he presses their bodies together, chest to chest until they form two perfect parallel lines and says breathily in Dick's ear: "Show me again, how much you love me."</p><p> </p><p>And Dick rolls over on top of him and kisses him softly and doesn't ask him anything at all.</p><p> </p><p>(<b>6.</b></p><p> </p><p>When eventually it ends, the war and the fighting and the ever permanent shaking in their bones and the adrenaline in their blood is making way for peace, they don't go home together. They don't even go at the same time. </p><p> </p><p>But Dick chases after him anyway and when he knocks on the grand door of that Jersey townhouse much later, Nix answers it with a grin that says <em> here you are </em> and <em> don't leave again </em> all at once and it has him grinning back before he even realizes it. </p><p> </p><p>"What are you laughing at, Nix?"</p><p> </p><p>"I'm just happy to see you." </p><p> </p><p>Nix reaches for Dick's hand to pull him inside and closes the door behind them and when they're out of the hallway and into the sitting room, Dick shrugs and jokes:</p><p> </p><p>"Well, it's no Chicago but it's something."</p><p> </p><p>And Nix says: "It's home."</p><p> </p><p>Dick looks down at their hands, still linked together, and when Nix catches his eye again, he squeezes their fingers and raises his eyebrows teasingly and it's a wonderful secret, this one that they share. </p><p> </p><p>Dick just smiles back at him, and nothing else really needs to be said after that.)</p><p> </p>
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